


Prompt: Honorary Nuncle

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [32]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Codependency, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 20:12:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5715586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Howard is brilliant, there is no doubt about that, but he really has no clue what to do when he marries Maria, and even less when his son is born. Peggy and some of her friends helped him with arranging the wedding - or more accurately helped <i>Maria</i> - but few of their circle have any experience with children.</p><p>“Like this,” Pietro says, holding Anthony Edward Stark carefully. “You have to cradle the head, babies’ necks aren’t strong enough when they’re born.”</p><p>“That’s terrible design,” Howard says, and lets Maria move his arms to the right position to hold his son. “How do you know how to do this?”</p><p>“We had family once,” Pietro says. He is gone in a split of silver as soon as the infant is safe in Howard’s arms.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Continued from <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5666581">This</a> and set prior to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5690527">This</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prompt: Honorary Nuncle

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Prompt: S.S.R. Students](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5666581) by [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts). 
  * Inspired by [Prompt: S.S.R. Schooling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5951385) by [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts). 



> Written for a prompt, readable on my tumblr [Here](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/137245168935/prompt-in-the-ssr-au-wanda-and-pietro-are). Continued from [This](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5666581) and set prior to [This](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5690527).

**i.**  
Training is... different. Tests were easy to do, even if they didn’t always like them very much, and it never mattered if they failed. Sometimes it wasn’t even possible to fail, and regardless they still got food.

Training is different. They can fail, and sometimes, if they’re on a practice op and don’t make the rendezvous they don’t get food. Sometimes they don’t get any even if they do because the other team failed their objectives. Wanda trains her scarlet better, picks through minds to find where there is more food, learns how to lure rabbits close to her hands so Pietro can catch them and snap their necks. Pietro trains his speed faster and faster, until he is almost as fast as a bullet, and then pushes on for more.

It almost saddens them when the war ends, to know there is no immediate application for their training. They stay in London for a while all the same, train on with whomever will help them, and then return to Howard’s guardianship in far off America.

 

* * *

 

 **ii.**  
“Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division!” Howard says with a cry of triumph. “Spelling out S.H.I.E.L.D., as you asked, Peg.”

The twins are sitting across the room from each other. Pietro is watching everything, gaze as intense as ever, and Wanda leans her head back against the wall, eyes shut as scarlet spirals around her. “It’s a mouthful,” Wanda murmurs. “You’ll have to keep it short all the time.”

“That’s the point,” Peggy says. “This organisation is to be a shield for the world, against HYDRA, against anything like them. I want people to remember that, before all of the complexity.”

Wanda catches the image flitting across her mind, blond hair, blue eyes, a well meaning face, a _shield_. “You want something the Captain would be proud of,” she says. “If this works, I think it would have made him proudest man on earth.”

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
They work with S.H.I.E.L.D.. Colonel Phillips is still wary about letting them out in the field, but Howard has taken as many samples from them as he can without taking them apart, and they still do not know how to replicate what they each can do.

“Let them,” Howard says.

“They’ve proved they’re trustworthy,” Peggy says.

The twins are allowed on ops.

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
On ops they work with the perfect tandem they have always had. Pietro guards, Wanda guides, leading them safely through minefields, finding who they seek, protecting assets and hostages and killing when absolutely necessary.

It frightens Pietro, slightly, the cool way that Wanda can raise her gun and shoot when he knows she sees their minds winking out.

“They weren’t good people,” she says, later. “I could see that too.”

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
Howard is brilliant, there is no doubt about that, but he really has no clue what to do when he marries Maria, and even less when his son is born. Peggy and some of her friends helped him with arranging the wedding - or more accurately helped _Maria_  - but few of their circle have any experience with children.

“Like this,” Pietro says, holding Anthony Edward Stark carefully. “You have to cradle the head, baby’s necks aren’t strong enough when they’re born.”

“That’s terrible design,” Howard says, and lets Maria move his arms to the right position to hold his son. “How do you know how to do this?”

“We had family once,” Pietro says. He is gone in a split of silver as soon as the infant is safe in Howard’s arms.

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
“He’s going to be terrible,” Pietro says. “He barely remembers to drink his coffee while it’s hot when he’s working, how is he going to remember he has a _son_  to care for?”

“He’s not,” Wanda says, “You know that.” They are sitting on the top floor of the still-under-construction Triskelion, and Wanda sometimes wonders if it will ever be finished. She’s glad, for now at least, that it isn’t; the view is quite superb.

“The child deserves better,” Pietro says. “Maria works with Peggy more often than not, and Howard is always tinkering. If they just leave him with Jarvis and _nannies_ -”

“They won’t,” Wanda says, and squeezes her brother’s hand. “We’ll make sure of it.”

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
The twins end up managing every birthday and Christmas Anthony Edward Stark has until he is fifteen down to the most minute detail. They make sure his parents are there, that they have presents which suit Tony, that little to nothing goes wrong. When Tony is six and already ahead of the curve in everything, Wanda starts suggesting they send him messages, letters or telegrams or encoded games when they really are so busy they can’t visit.

“You care about him,” Wanda says. “So show it. Tell him.”

Howard eyes them like a disapproving grandparent, but makes sure to encourage Tony, to praise him when he builds a circuit board at four and an engine at almost seven. Maria makes sure Howard tells Tony he is loved, and Tony is raised with distant but loving parents, a trusted butler, and Wanda and Pietro as honorary aunt-and-uncle.

 

* * *

 

 **viii.**  
Where they can, they keep an eye on Tony when he’s at MIT. They know Howard has a propensity for alcohol, and they try to prevent his son going the same way. Wanda makes sure Tony never forgets the morning he woke up in a puddle of his own sick after almost choking, and makes him clean up his own mess.

“We care about you,” Wanda says, scarlet lashing in tight and contained circles around her hands. “But that doesn’t mean we’ll clean up all of your mistakes. You know your father’s an alcoholic. Don’t go the same way.”

 

* * *

 

 **ix.**  
Tony decides to go cold turkey on the alcohol - thoroughly encouraged by Jarvis, given that Tony has only just turned sixteen. A year and a half later though, Pietro is breaking up fights with Tony in the middle. 

“Look,” Pietro says. “You want to unwind, and you’ve decided to swear off alcohol. I know the feeling.”

Tony harrumphs, and tries to shrug off Pietro’s arm wrapped around his shoulders. Pietro lets him, and tucks his hands into his pockets. 

“You never unwind,” Tony accuses. “You’re always as tense as a suspension spring.”

Pietro laughs. “No,” he says. “I’m always _watchful_. It’s different. You want to unwind? Find someone to do it with. That’s what I do.” Tony looks at him like he’s grown a second head. “ _Sex_ ,” Pietro says. “It’s a time-honoured way of unwinding.”

Tony glances to where Wanda is sat reading a little way aways. They always seem to lead him out of trouble to wherever the both of them were. He knows they’re in each other’s heads, but- 

His eyebrows rise. “You and-”

“ _No_ ,” Pietro says. “Look. You want to unwind. Find company to do it in. Even if you only end up _knitting_. Wanda prefers to read. I like to run. You don’t seem to care for legality so long as no one is hurt, so just. Keep sensible. Find a way to unwind.” Pietro gently clapped Tony’s shoulder. “Just don’t go getting more black eyes. You know what Jarvis will say.”

Tony grumbles, but he listens.

 

* * *

 

 **x.**  
Pietro and Wanda both relax when Tony falls in with James Rhodes. Background searches - even those run through S.H.I.E.L.D. - show him to be a good man, and when Peggy meets him when she goes to pick Tony up from university for Christmas she agrees.

(The twins have long since realised that Peggy’s assessments of people were rarely faulty.)

James Rhodes is the average age for someone attending university, rather than Tony’s ludicrously young, and keeps an eye on him when he gets rowdy. They aren’t entirely sure how he managed to find their phone numbers at the time (they later learn he’d somehow managed to wrangle it out of Tony), but he calls them when Tony has had fifteen espressos in two hours and is showing no sign of stopping.

“Tony,” Wanda says, and smiles. “Don’t go working yourself to death. Think what Jarvis would say to us.”

Tony pulls a face and considers. “Sorry Auntie Wanda,” is mumbled, and he gently leans into Wanda’s touch as she reaches towards his hair. 

“Sleep,” Wanda says. “You can do the assignment in the morning.”

 

* * *

 

 **xi.**  
Tony is twenty-one when he calls them sounding panicked. 

“Please,” he says. “Mom and Dad- there was a car crash-”

Wanda is in Pietro’s arms and they are at Tony’s side in moments.

The crash is replaying on Tony’s television, clips captured from the tiny cameras Tony had helped his father rig to their every vehicle. Black figure on the road. Black figure on the car. Silver arm flashing in the sunlight and the steering wheel ripped out.

“Come on kiddo,” Pietro says, and offers to carry Tony as he hasn’t since Tony was four and had whacked a wrench into his ribs.

 

* * *

 

 **xii.**  
They arrive around half an hour after the incident, and police are beginning to gather, driving in from towns miles away.

The bodies in the car are... bad.

 

* * *

 

 **xiii.**  
Tony is looking at her with some kind of desperation, and Wanda knows it well. She remembers Pietro looking to her with that same look when they had seen their parents killed, executed in an attempt to trigger their powers into working in focussed tandem. It is pleading and hoping against all reason and Wanda shakes her head. Her scarlet is diving around her hands, through Howard’s skull, but there is nothing there to see.

“He’s dead,” Wanda whispers. “There is nothing there to see or to speak to. He’s gone.”

Pietro catches Tony when he crumples, arms ready and waiting.

 

* * *

 

 **xiv.**  
Tony is gaunt at the funeral. Pietro knows he hasn’t been eating, but trusts Rhodes’ presence at his shoulder to hold him up and keep him from drink. Wanda is standing with Peggy, offering her comfort, and Pietro takes his preferred position of watcher.

 _The soldier_ , he sends to Wanda. _Who ripped the steering wheel out. We need to find him_.

 _I’ve looked_ , Wanda sends. _There are rumours, nothing more._

 _Tony-_  Pietro starts.

_Won’t speak of it. It’s backburner material Pietro. We won’t find it if we search directly._

Pietro sighs. 

It’s not raining, but Pietro thinks it almost should. It hadn’t been raining when the Captain had died, it hadn’t been raining when Colonel Phillips had, it had been slightly misty when Jarvis had died in the night of old age. Pietro casts his mind back and remembers when their parents were shot. It hadn’t been raining then either.

Sometimes, he thinks, the weather should bow to emotions. After all those they’ve lost it would be the least it could do.

Wanda must have felt the winds of his mind complaining, for he feels her scarlet weaving in, gently soothing. _We’ll find them_ , she promises. _It will just take us time_.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Prompt: Asking of Nightmares](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5690527) by [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts)




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